


World-Shattering

by sunkelles



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11445012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: Peter tells Liz that he's Spider-Man. This makes their relationship happier until it doesn't.





	World-Shattering

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. guess who shat out a fic after seeing the matinee today? this gal!!!!!!!  
> 2\. I um, I kind of took the fact that Liz is still obviously close to her dad (her stating her dad's desire for them to move to oregon for the duration of the trial as the primary reason for the move) and then adrian's family visiting in the credits scene and ran with it.  
> 3\. i wanted to say that adrian toomes is definitely a villain and i don't want to condone his actions, but because this story is being told by liz it might not always come across that way. liz is an unreliable narrator as much as the rest of us  
> 4\. i really liked liz, please don't take the events of this fic as me demonizing her as much as this being a result of denial and grief  
> 

Liz Toomes is going to die. She is. She knows it. She’s going to die in this elevator in the Washington Monument, even though the rest of the group got out, even though Spider-Man was able to save them.Then a web wraps around her hand, and Spider-Man lets out an audible sigh of relief. 

“I got you,” he says, and he sounds as relieved as she is, “I got you, Liz.” And he does have her, but she doesn't know how he knows her name. 

He pulls her up, and then when her feet are finally on solid ground she asks, “How do you know my name?”

“Oh,” Spider-man says, “remember, I’m friends with Peter Parker. He says hi.” Then he leaves, and Liz is left with her adrenaline and confusion.

 

  
As the days after she almost died pass, Liz doesn’t get any less confused by her interaction with Spider-Man, especially since Peter Parker seems to be avoiding her. She finally manages to corner him in the hallway.

“Peter,” she says. Peter freezes in place, then turns around.

“Oh,” he says awkwardly, “hi Liz.”

“Spider-Man said that you said hi.”

“Oh, yeah, I do. I always want to tell you hi.”

“Except at the hotel in DC,” she says, “or the Decathalon, or even at the monument.” She didn’t even realize that she was still mad about that. She hadn’t even thought about it since almost dying, but now that she’s talking about it she’s irritated about it all over again. She doesn't mind that he blew her off as much as the fact that he won't tell her what happened. 

“I had something that I had to do,” Peter says, like that’s any excuse, “I promise that it was important.” The only reasons that Liz can think of to sneak out at a school function aren’t good. Maybe that’s why he won’t tell her what happened?

“I like you, Peter, whatever it is, you can tell me.” He bites his lip, and seems like he’s considering it. Then, he looks cautiously around the corner.

“Alright,” Peter says, sending her this hopeful little smile, “I’ll tell you.” He holds his left hand over his right palm. Unless he’s trying to tell her that he’s in a gang with a really strange sign, Liz has no clue what he’s trying to tell her. Then a burst of web shoots from his wrist, and wraps around his hand.

“You’re Spider-Man,” she nearly shouts. He makes a frantic shushing noise as he gestures largely.

“I don’t want the whole school to know,” he says with wide, frightened eyes. Then she remembers Ned telling her that Peter was friends with Spider-Man. She starts laughing.

“Oh my god,” she says, “I had a normal crush and a celebrity crush on the same guy.” Peter perks up a little at that. She’s a little confused by that. It’s not like this is the first time that Peter’s heard of her crush. She laid it all on the table back in DC.

“Are we cool now? I promise, I only missed those things because of Spider-Man stuff.” Liz grins at him.

“I understand, guess being Spider-Man’s girlfriend would come with complications like that.” She hopes that it comes out confident and teasing, and not like she’s overstepping. It’s just that she likes him, and she knows that he likes her, and she doesn’t know how else to see if this thing’s happening.

He looks like a deer in the headlights for a second, and she tries to backtrack, “Only if you’re cool with that” Then he smiles widely, like she’s the only thing in the world worth looking at. It reminds her of how her dad looks at her mom sometimes.

“Liz, being your boyfriend would be the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me." 

“Cooler than the Spider Powers?” she asks with a wry smile. He makes a so-so gesture with his hand, and she laughs.

“Guess we’ll have to try it to find out,” he says, “you wanna see that new Wonder Woman movie Friday night?” She nods.

“I’d like that, on one condition though.”

“What?”

“You come with me to the homecoming dance. I planned it. I wanna make sure that my boyfriend’s gonna be there with me.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he says, “unless like, the world’s ending. Can I miss it then, for Spider-Man reasons?”

“We’ll talk about it then,” she jokes.

 

  
Dating Peter Parker is awesome. He’s an adorable nerd, and he gets so excited about everything. It seems like every time that they hang out he finds some way to make her more excited about life and get her to life. Dating Spider-Man? That’s pretty damn cool too.

It involves swinging from rooftops, bad spider jokes, and figuring out how his powers work without his suit. He even lets her take some pictures, which is _so_ cool. Liz finds that she’s more excited for this homecoming dance than any other dance she’s ever gone to before. It’s about half the fact that she organized it, but the rest is all Peter. She’s at least half in love with the guy, makes sense that half of her excitement would come from that. 

She can’t wait for her parents to finally meet him.

 

 

The day of the dance comes around, and Liz finds herself stressing way more about her dress and hair than she means to. Both her parents promise that she looks beautiful. She fusses with her hair a hundred times before Peter finally gets there.

He seems weird and awkward when he gets there, but she assumes that he’s just got stage fright around her parents. Meeting your girlfriend’s parents is supposed to be a little scary, right? Especially since her dad’s kind of the polish your gun while meeting your daughter's boyfriend type. She assumes that he’ll get over it once they get to the dance. The opposite of that happens.

“I have to go,” he says.

“Is it Spidey stuff?” she demands. If Peter is leaving her alone at the dance that she planned, she deserves an explanation. She’ll be fine just as long as she knows what the hell he’s doing. He doesn’t answer her.

Instead he says, “I’m so sorry, you don’t deserve this.” Like that answers her fucking question. Like that means anything other than “I’m leaving, Liz! Have fun dealing with the aftermath of this!” She’s confused, but mainly she’s just angry. He’s right. She _doesn’t_ deserve this. She deserves so much more.

She has to explain to every single one of her friends that Peter left her at the dance with a corsage on her hand and no explanation. She dances as hard as she can, and practically shouts the lyrics to _Single Ladies_. She goes to get punch afterwards, and runs into Michelle.

“Peter fuck up?” Michelle asks her. Liz laughs bitter and loud.

“You have no idea,” Liz tells her. Liz takes a sip of punch, and she and Michelle stand in companionable silence as  _Just Dance_ blares over the loud speakers. 

“You know, I think that dances are a waste of school resources, but this one’s kinda nice.”

“I planned it,” Liz says. She knows that Michelle means well, but she’s not exactly great at human interaction most of the time. The companionable silence was a lot easier to deal with than this is. 

“I know,” Michelle says, “that’s why it doesn’t suck so much.” Liz forces a smile. She thinks that’s the nicest thing she’s ever heard Michelle say to anyone.

“Thanks,” she says. Another good dance number comes up, and Liz forces her way back into the center of the dance floor. She keeps dancing for the rest of the night, trying to keep her mind off of her missing date. Her mother shows up at midnight when the dance ends.

“Where’s Peter?” her mother asks.

“He ditched me,” Liz says. She doesn’t bother to keep the bile out of her voice.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” her mother says. Liz shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. She’s trying to get to the point where it doesn’t. Her mother drives her home, and doesn’t ask her anymore questions. When they finally get home, Liz get herself a glass of water and some oreos and sits down at the counter.

Her mother’s cell phone rings, and she picks it up. Liz turns on the TV. Her mom still has it on the local news station. Liz almost goes to change it to a sitcom before she sees what’s on the screen. Her mother answers her phone.

“Honey? Why did you call from that number?” The text at the bottom of the screen says “local man arrested trying to rob the Avengers”.

“You’re where?” Then she sees her father on the news, trapped in web, with a fucking note from Spider-Man attached to his chest. Her mother takes her phone off of her ear for a moment. 

“Liz, your dad’s been-”

“Arrested?” Liz suggests, her voice cracking. Her mother turns around as she says “how did you-” Then her eyes widen as she sees the screen.

“Honey, you’re on the news,” her mother tells her father, who is in jail. He’s getting his one phone call right now. Peter left her alone at the dance to put her father in jail.

“Mom, please, put him on speaker. I want to hear his voice,” she says. Her mother sighs, but she puts him on speaker.

“Hi dad,” Liz says, her voice shaky.

“Hey Lizzy,” he says, his voice warm.

“Peter Parker did this to you,” she says. Then her dad laughs, that way that he does when he realizes he’s been lied to. She hasn’t heard that since he realized that she had been the one to accidentally break him old phone.

“He told me you didn’t know.”

“You talked to him?”

“Just a little shovel talk, super villain dad to superhero boyfriend.” She thinks that "super villain dad" is supposed to bug her more than "superhero boyfriend". It doesn;t. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she growls.

“Ah, that’s my girl." Then her mother starts to laugh. 

“You’re telling me that skinny little date of yours is Spider-Man?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“You had such a big crush on him,” her mother says. She's not sure if her mother is talking about Spider-Man or Peter, but she supposes that it doesn't matter. They're the same person anyways. 

“I did,” she says, and she can hear how bitter she sounds, “then he ditched me and put my dad in jail.”

"Is it bad I'm more angry about him ditching you than the jail time?" her dad asks jokingly. 

“Honey, you’re not convicted yet,” her mother says hopefully, “we can get you a good lawyer. We can get you off.”

“I’m going to prison, no matter what lawyer you get me. They’ll lock me up. Too much evidence against me. Wouldn’t even be worth it to try.”

“There can’t be that much,” her mother asserts.

“I’ve done a lot of things you two don’t know about. Trust me, they’re gonna lock me up. It’s better not to waste the money.”

“Then what do you want us to do, Adrian?”

“Move away. Remember, we always talked about moving to Oregon once we had enough saved.” That had always been her parent’s dream, to settle down in Oregon someday to retire, far away from city life. 

“But what about you,” Liz says. Nothing about this situation is right. Peter should have given her a chance to fix things. Now everything’s ruined and there's nothing she can do to change it. 

“I’ll be alright, Liz, I promise. You and your mom will too.” But they’ll be separate, divided. She knows that her dad will be doing heavy time for this. He won’t be out to see her high school graduation, and probably not her college one either. He might not even be out in time to walk her down the aisle.

“The officers are saying I gotta go, but I love you both. No matter what they dredge up about me, I want you to know that. I love you both so much.” Then the line goes dead. Liz suddenly realizes that she doesn’t know prison protocol. She doesn’t know how often he’ll be able to call, if they’ll ever get to see him. She feels like she doesn’t know anything at all.

Liz looks over to her mother, and engulfs her in a hug. She cries into her mother’s shoulder, and holds her as tightly as she can. At least she still has one parent she can cling to.

 

 

They start packing the next day, and they pack up their house for the whole weekend. She forces herself to go into school on Monday morning to pick up her things. She sees exactly the guy she hoped to never see again.

“Hi Liz,” Peter says. He has his hands in his pockets, and he looks like he’s trying to be as small as possible. He knows that Liz doesn’t want to see him. What Liz doesn’t understand is why he’s here at all.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says, taking yet another textbook out of her locker. She drops it into the box.

“Liz, I just- I wanted to apologize. I know that homecoming didn’t go all that well-”

“You ditched me and put my dad in jail,” Liz says, taking her mirror off of her locker door, “saying it “didn’t go that well” is an understatement.” 

“I know I messed up,” Peter says, like he has any idea that he put her life through a fucking shredder, “I just- I didn’t know how to tell you that I had to go stop your dad from robbing the Department of Damage Control.”

“You just say that, then I could have- I could have-”

“What do you think you could have done?” he asks. It’s such a condescending phrase, and Liz feels even angrier than before. She slams her last book into her box, then she stands up and faces him.

“I could have talked him out of it,” she growls at him.

“You think that you could have? He kept that a secret from you for years, Liz. He threatened to kill me. You think he was just gonna stop because you asked him too?”

“Yes,” Liz says, with every last bit of certainty. Her dad is a good person who got in too deep with whatever this is. He loves her. She knows that she could have stopped him, if Peter just gave her the chance. Then her father would still be on this side of those prison walls.

“He was selling deadly weapons to criminals!”

“So did Tony Stark!” Liz growls. She’s heard about Stark Industries’s dodgy dealings in the Middle East from more people than just her father. It’s common knowledge, and if Peter thinks that what his idol did was somehow more acceptable than what her dad did because it was legal he has another thing coming.

“Liz, please,” Peter says. He looks like a kicked puppy. Liz doesn’t even care at this point. Peter Parker might look like a puppy, but he’s one that tore up her couch with his teeth and shat all over it's tattered remains. 

“I never want to see you again,” she says, and she slams her locker door. His eyes are wet, and he looks like he’s going to say something. She knows it won’t be an apology, though. Spider-Man is as self-righteous as his mentor is wealthy.

Then she turns her back to him, and walks down the hall. She has _real_ friends to say goodbye to.

 

When she gets home, Liz doesn’t leave her room for the rest of the day. She curls up on her bed, and she flips through the old photos on her phone. There’s a picture of her and her dad at that new amusement park downtown. He’d taken a day out of his busy schedule to take her because he knows how much she loves roller coasters.

She wonders, idly, if he decided not to go through on a weapons deal because he took her there. She pushes the thought out of her mind as she finds a selfie she and her mom took on her mother’s birthday. She flips through Decathalon pictures, selfies with her friends, and pictures of the homecoming set up. Then she comes to pictures of her and Peter. She deletes the first one, a selfie they took at _Wonder Woman_.

Then she deletes the picture she took of him swooning over the cut out of _Wonder Woman_. Then she deletes another, and another, and another. She doesn’t want to look at his stupid face anymore. Then she comes to one that makes her pause. She doesn’t delete this photo immediately.

It’s one that she took of Peter a few weeks after they started dating. He’s wearing all of the Spider-Man costume other than the mask, and cradling a little spider in his hands. It had been the funniest thing in the world to them that night, that Spider-Man had found a tiny spider in his pocket after they watched a movie. They went through the ridiculous trouble of taking that photo, after all.

It’s as incriminating as any evidence that the NYPD has on her father. Then, Liz gets an awful idea, a petty, vindictive, world-shattering idea. At least, it would be world-shattering for one person.

The one that shattered her world, and didn’t even give her the chance to keep that from happening. The one that claimed to care about her, but didn’t even consider her once before locking her father up.

Liz looks at that photo of Spider Parker and makes a decision. She switches out of her camera, and goes to her camera. She switches on the video, and starts talking at her camera, telling it every bit of evidence that she has Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

“Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and he put my father in prison.”

She fakes a sweet tone for a second,” And Peter, if you’re watching this?”

Then she brings her bile back full force as she says, “You can burn in hell.” She stops the recording. She feels a sense of catharsis and sadistic joy when she finishes.

This will ruin him. She hesitates for a moment. Does she want to ruin him? Does she really want to shatter his life? But then she remembers what he did to hers, the ruins he left hers in. She knows that the answer is yes.

She posts the video and the photo to her Facebook. Then she sends a link to a few reporters at the New York Times and a few people who work at Buzzfeed. Eventually, this will saturate both the serious and the shitty news sites. She curls up into bed, bitter and angry, and only slightly vindicated.

Less than a minute later, she can feel her phone blowing up in her hand. It won’t stop vibrating, and she holds the off button down. Then she slides the red bar, and pushes her phone into unconsciousness. It won’t bother her until she wants it to.

Liz has said her peace, now let Spider-Man deal with the fallout. Liz doesn’t even feel bad about it. He left her to deal with the wreckage of her life without a second thought. She'll let him deal with the wreckage of his now. 


End file.
